


Long Live the Fools

by stereobone



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-08
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-03-15 08:47:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13609797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stereobone/pseuds/stereobone
Summary: After they lose the war, Hux goes into exile.Kylo finds him.





	Long Live the Fools

Hux wakes up with cold bones. He doesn't know how else to describe the sensation, a chill that runs so deep it's as if ice water has replaced the marrow in him. As if his body is failing. But this has been happening since the war was lost and Hux exiled himself on a planet so far from civilization no one had even thought to name it. Hux stands from his bed, feels the crack of his joints as he stretches. His bones are still cold.

The morning routine goes like this: Hux takes a bath, a long one, because he can now, and the hot water is the only way he gets warm. Then, breakfast while he watches the holocamera for any sign that someone might be coming for him. It isn't that Hux would put up a fight. He just wants to know when his time comes. The ceilings of the house are so short, if Hux were an inch taller his head would scrape along the top of them. Sometimes he finds himself bending anyway, curled in on himself, smaller. He found the house when he landed. Abandoned. Scraped out of a hillside. But a garden barely thriving and that was all Hux really needed. After breakfast, he goes to that garden, pulls up root vegetables and tries to care for flowers he knows are dying.

There are a few inhabitants on this planet, aliens Hux doesn't recognize and who don't recognize him. He looks different, now, hair longer and ungelled, a beard he often forgets to trim. They see him sometimes, and wave, or nod. Hux has the decency these days to nod back. He hates them. The war should have been the First Order's to win, _his_ to win. Things were supposed to go another way. They should know him. Just not like this.

Hux stands in the garden outside the house and lets the mist prick his skin. This planet is green, so lush the smell is overwhelming sometimes. Rain comes often, sometimes for days. It doesn't matter to Hux what the weather is either way. He's only waiting. He checks on a few vegetables, turns his gaze to space, sees only gray sky.

\--

He doesn't hear Kylo coming, which doesn't surprise him. There was no alert from his warning system, no vibration of the soil at a ship landing. Kylo is just suddenly there, walking up the hillside, all black, every step like he's trying to punch his feet into the soil. Hux had been tending to his garden. He stands, wind whipping his shirt and hair all over, until Kylo reaches him. He isn't even afraid. When he dreamt of his death, it was always Kylo.

"Well," Hux says. "Have you finally come to kill me?"

"No," Kylo says, voice deep and sure.

Hux's jaw tightens. "Then why are you here?"

"Because," Kylo says. "There's no one left."

Hux straightens. His body feels tight and hot for the first time in a long while. Kylo watches him, just a few crops between them, with some kind of wanting in his eyes. Hux turns his back to him.

"Get out of my sight," he says.

He walks into the house.

Kylo is behind him again only minutes later. Of course he is. Kylo does what he likes. Hux used to dream of having Kylo under his thumb, that wild dog, tuned to Hux's will. He knows better now. Kylo is not a thing to be tamed. Once, Hux had wrapped his hand over Kylo's wrist and felt him tense so hard he thought Kylo would break his own body.

Hux gives him a sour look as he digs around in the conservator for tonight's dinner.

"Sentencing passed on the First Order officers today," Kylo says. "Death."

"I don't care," Hux says, then curses himself and asks, "And you?"

Kylo hadn't been on the ship when they went down. He'd been fighting that girl and ignoring everything Hux was trying to tell him.

"No one got to me. Not even the girl."

That doesn't give Hux any comfort, except the confirmation that no one is coming for him here. Not yet. He starts chopping his meat on the counter, ignores how Kylo bends to fit in the house, tucked awkwardly into the kitchen chair.

"Why are you here?" he asks again.

He doesn't care how Kylo found him. The Force isn't something Hux has ever understood, only that it's done him no good. Kylo pulls off his leather gloves.

"I haven't decided where to go."

He sounds unsure, and the undercurrent of the sentence is clear: he has nowhere to go. So he came here. How he found him is of no consequence to Hux. He feels a surge of anger in his chest, then oddly, relief. His jaw hurts from talking. Hux hasn't talked to someone in so long. He isn't even entirely sure how long it's been. Months. Less than a year, but maybe close. And what can he do? Tell Kylo to leave? He won't. Hux exhales long and slow through his nose, then grabs an extra portion of meat from the conservator.

Kylo sees. He doesn't offer to help.

\--

That night, Kylo sleeps in the front room. They haven't spoken since Hux pulled out extra food for him. Not a word. They ate without looking at each other, and after Kylo brought in his meager things and cluttered them in the front room like he owned the space. He had his back turned to Hux, and for a moment Hux considered reaching for the blaster he kept hidden in the side table. His fingers itched with it. Only he did nothing. He shut the lights and went to his bed, felt his bones go cold again.

He hears Kylo that night. Hears him breathing in his sleep. Hears his body shift position. Hux thinks about the blaster in his side table again. Later, he won't be able to remember if he fell asleep before getting up, or just decided against it.

\--

"You're overwatering these flowers," Kylo says.

It's the first thing he's said in two days. He's crouched down in the garden, fingers brushing over the stem of the flowers. Hux stands over him with a mesh basket of potatoes.

"What do you know about flowers?" he says.

Kylo doesn't respond. He doesn't even look up. He is somewhere else, remembering something that Hux doesn't want to know about. His mind volleys violently between anger towards Kylo and the relief of having someone here with him. The latter part feels traitorous.

Kylo finally stands. He changed into different clothes after the first night, some poor imitation of what he might have worn as a Jedi. The clothes are looser and move in the wind. As if Kylo is being pulled elsewhere.

"Cover them a few days," he says. "They'll bloom."

He goes inside before Hux has a chance to tell him that he's more concerned about the actual food than the flowers. But he does cover them.

Hux stands in the silence after. A drop of rain hit the tip of his nose. Only half the potatoes he dug up are even good, and the days seem to be getting colder. Hux wraps himself tighter in his sweater and considers how long he can stay out here before the rains come. He imagines Kylo inside, rooting around in his conservator.

Kylo.

The reason they lost the war.

\--

He dreams, sometimes. More often than he used to. After he became General, there was a period of time that Hux doesn't remember having any dreams at all.

The most recent dream, the one that reoccurs too often, is of the day they lost. The flash of light, silent and blinding, then all at once too much noise. Screaming. People scrambling for the escape pods. They all became animals looking to survive. An officer Hux knew from the academy tried to wrestle him away from one of the pods, so driven by panic Hux didn't think he even recognized who he was. Hux pulled the dagger from his sleeve and stabbed him in the tracheal artery. He didn't notice until much later, when his pod had been jettisoned, the blood on his neck, his jaw.

Tonight, Hux wakes up just after he stabs his old friend. The house should be silent, except he can hear Kylo sleeping. Hux lies awake and considers how heavy defeat is. How his body has lost fat but weighs him down more than ever. His eyes never adjust quite the way they should to darkness. Hux can barely make out the kitchen from his bed. Kylo's breathing stops. For a moment, so does Hux's. Then, Kylo breathes again. Stuttered, as if inhaling too much air. Hux hears him shift on his blankets, like a struggle.

Hux gets out of bed. Walks on his toes to where Kylo sleeps. He can see him, just, body fidgeting. His fingers and face twitch. Hux half expects him to call out for someone, or something. And maybe he should wake him, but he won't. It's an odd comfort to know things haunt Kylo as well. Hux watches. The comfort gives way to anger, to righteous indignation.

 _How dare you,_ he thinks. _How dare you come here and show me this._

Hux gets back into bed. Moments later he hears the sharp exhale of Kylo waking up. He shuts his eyes until Kylo's breathing evens out again.

By morning, he's barely gotten any more sleep. Outside, he removes the cover from his flowers and sees the buds are fat and ready to split open into petals. Kylo emerges. Hux points to the mesh basket by the door.

"Harvest the rest of the vegetables."

Kylo grabs the basket without a word, bleary eyed.

The wind picks up, a clear sign that a storm is coming. Half the vegetables Kylo pulls up are rotted. He looks to the sky with the basket pressed against his hip, squints at the grayness. He can no doubt smell the storm coming by now, the thickness in the air.

"This food won't last us," he says.

"I know that," Hux says.

"There are other inhabitants here. Have you talked to them?"

Hux thinks of the aliens who wave to him.

"Don't talk to them. We don't need to draw any attention to ourselves."

There are rotted vegetables at Kylo's feet, and the wind makes his clothes and hair dance, and Hux feels utterly exhausted.

"If they don't know who—"

"I said no."

Hux's voice, sharp, echoes off the hillside. He is aware now that he's shaking, perhaps visibly. Kylo watches him in the wind. Rather than wait for the argument, Hux goes into the house, too cold now to bother. He makes tea and hears the house ache and moan at the wind.

Kylo doesn't come inside for nearly an hour.

When he does, his arms are full of food. Food Hux didn't grow.

Hux stands like he's been ignited, nearly knocks his tea over. His hair picks up static and trails against the ceiling. Kylo has set the food down by the time Hux gets to him. He's angry. He's never been so angry.

"Didn't you hear what I said?!"

Kylo stands to full height. He looks confused more than angry.

"We need food."

"No," Hux says. "We need to lay low."

He hates that they're suddenly a collective. Like they're in this together. They aren't.

"But you never listen, and now look where we both are."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Kylo says, eyes darker, walking forward just because he knows he can overpower Hux that easily.

Hux backs up, but doesn't relent. He's too far gone now to care. Everything is too far gone.

"I told you not to lose sight on Crait! You didn't listen! And now I'm here on this forsaken planet waiting to die." Hux pushes his hair back, shaking. "But you couldn't let it go there. You had to follow me."

"You don't understand," Kylo says. "I had to face him."

"He wasn't even _there_."

Kylo is too in his space now, and Hux is against the wall, no escape, only he doesn't want escape. He wants oblivion. He sees the wild anger in Kylo's eyes. Sees something beyond that he doesn't understand.

"I begged Snoke to get rid of you," Kylo says. "Look at you. You don't understand anything beyond your own design."

"Is that supposed to wound me?" Hux feels spit gather in the corner of his mouth. "If I had known what you would do to this operation, I would have killed you the moment Snoke brought you onboard."

Kylo's hot breath ghosts over Hux's face.

"You cost us everything," he says, just the twist the knife deeper, because he can.

Instead of getting angrier, Kylo's eyes dull, like snuffing out a light. The space between them is wire thin, fragile. Hux doesn't expect the kiss. It hurts, Kylo's mouth not quite fitting onto his, the pinch of his teeth against Hux's lip. Kylo's hands are dug into his shirt, claws, and Hux grabs them to push Kylo back. Kylo goes, mouth pinker for it. Hux's bottom lip tingles. Something wild breaks in him, feeling that sting in his lip. Hux wasn't aware of it, or maybe he tried not to be. He can't think right now. He just pulls Kylo back to him.

There is something feral about it. Hux can't even be sure if they're kissing or just mouthing at each other, mostly teeth, hands scrambling to grab onto something but not sure where to fit. They push against each other for a few desperate, raw moments before Kylo drops to his knees. He pulls Hux's pants down and Hux guides his head without thinking about it, like an instinct he's buried in him. Kylo takes Hux's cock into his mouth so easy, lips stretched and fat. Hux groans and lets his head knock into the wall.

Kylo holds low on Hux's hips for leverage and sucks him, nose bumping into Hux's pelvis. His eyes are shut tight in concentration. His lashes sweep along the delicate skin of his face in a way Hux finds beautiful. So he fists his hand in Kylo's hair and tugs. Kylo's brows twist in pain but he doesn't stop. Hux's orgasm hits him white hot, takes his knees out from under him. He collapses on the floor, a mess, undone, Kylo wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand.

Before he goes, Kylo pulls Hux's pants up for him, tucks his cock in like a prize, reverent, almost regretful.

\--

The storm hits like a fist. The house shakes with it. Lightning so loud it could crack the sky open. Hux thinks it'll be a miracle if the house isn't struck, even burrowed into the hill. He sits with a fresh cup of tea at the table and knows the storm will last through the night. He considers running into the thick of it. His mouth has been dry since Kylo swallowed him down. Shame hot in his belly. Arousal. There's an ache in his pelvis that just won't fade.

Hux doesn't know if this is what he wanted all along, or if this is just what naturally comes of losing everything.

Kylo's mouth on him, those full lips. Hux was delighted by him, in a sick sort of way. Disgusted at himself.

Kylo is sitting on the floor in the front room, back to Hux. He is too big for this house. He's too big for so much of this galaxy. Hux dips his finger into his tea and finds it still hot. He takes a slow, careful sip. The food Kylo brought has now been stored away. And they do need it. That just isn't the point. If Kylo had just finished the Resistance off on Crait, they wouldn't be here. After that, things never quite picked up the way they should have. Kylo couldn't lead. He's the type to run, reckless, and without a leash he just gets himself into trouble. And so he did.

"It wasn't all my fault," Kylo says from the front room.

"If that's what you believe," Hux says, despite knowing it's true.

His cup of tea flies into the opposite wall. Shatters. The tea drips depressingly onto the floor. Kylo is still facing away from him. Like Hux isn't even a threat. He hears the rain turn sideways with the wind and beat against the western wall. Hux waits for Kylo to look at him, knows that he won't.

Hux pushes himself away from the table. He leaves the mess and walks to his bed on coltish legs.

\--

Kylo crawls into his bed later, strangely small. Kylo. Hux considers kicking him out but the heat radiating from Kylo is a siren's song, too tempting and Hux wants it. He does. Decides with near vindictiveness that he's going to have this. He turns and Kylo is watching him, eyes wide, wet, his intent clear. He looks apologetic at his outburst from earlier. Lonely.

He reaches for Hux and Hux catches his hands, holds him back. For a moment, they struggle for no reason at all except that they can, until they lay there holding each other's wrists and panting.

When Hux tells him to stretch himself open, Kylo goes stupid, breath caught in his throat.

"What?"

And Hux reaches between his legs and presses two of his fingertips against the seam of Kylo's sleeping pants, feels them dip between Kylo's cheeks.

"Open yourself up for me," he says.

Then Kylo comes to life, scrambles to get his clothes off. His facial scar is longer than Hux thought, licks up near his right breast. His nipples are pink, cock hard and thick, something Hux files away for later. Kylo gets up on his hands and knees and reaches behind himself, pushes in with shaking fingers. He's so close to Hux that Hux can smell him, the hint of sulfur on him. He lets the backs of his fingers drift up Kylo's thigh and listens to Kylo's breathing stutter. His pants become too tight. Hux slides them off and palms his cock. Slicks it with his own precome.

Kylo pushes his hips back to take more of himself, the tiniest of moans escaping him, fingers up to the knuckle. Hux swallows thick and taps his wrist. Kylo slips his fingers out and there he is, dripping and ready for it.

"I want you like this," Hux says, and Kylo drops his head to his forearm, slurs out, "Fuck."

Hux kisses Kylo's hole with the tip of his cock. Kylo jerks, strained. Waiting for it. Wants it just as bad. Hux pushes into him, one motion, maybe a bit too roughly, but Kylo just gasps and pushes back against him. The odd hysteria bubbles up in Hux again and he takes hold of Kylo's hips, pulls him fully onto his cock. He knows he hasn't found the right rhythm yet. But Kylo is pushing back against him still like he can't get enough of it, so Hux gives him what he can, which is everything. Lets his cock drag out slow until it's almost free and then punches back in just to hear Kylo lose his breath. Kylo's fist slams into the mattress.

He loosens right up for Hux, lets him right in. Hux fucks into Kylo so hard they're crashing bones together. Both of them so loud even the thunder is drowned out. At this point, Hux isn't sure either of them is looking to orgasm. Kylo has his head bowed, and his hair petals around him to expose the tender back of his neck. Hux drapes himself over the broad expanse of Kylo's back and lets his beard rub rough over the skin, the knobs where his spine begins at the base of his skull.

Hux wants to scream at him, to know why he's like this, why everywhere he goes he breaks things down. Why he can't leave Hux alone and why Hux doesn't want him to. Kylo arches his back and says Hux's name too loud. Hux spends into him. Hold Kylo's hips with the intent to leave a mark. The hope of it.

When Hux reaches between them to Kylo's cock, he finds he's already made a mess of himself.

After, Kylo clings to him sharply, like he's afraid of losing him. The thunder is distant, but the rain is still sure.

"Let go," Hux says into the darkness.

Kylo does not. Hux sleeps surrounded by him, warm and subdued.

\--

The storm passes by morning. Hux wakes to Kylo pressed against him, body curled small. Still asleep. Kylo, in his bed because last night they had _sex_. Hux doesn't know why the realization doesn't shock him. In a way he knew it would come to this. They'd already pushed themselves into the other in every way. This was all that was left to do.

Hux slips from the bed and sees the broken teacup and spill has been cleaned up. Kylo shifts on the bed like he's reaching for Hux.

Hux goes outside.

The land is a mess. All the tall grass has bowed to the wind and stayed that way, shows its pale underside. The flowers are ripped up. Scattered along the hillside, and only a few managed to weather the storm enough to stay planted. Everything is still wet. Hux bends and presses his hand into the creamy dirt. The food Kylo got will at least last them a while longer, and Hux doesn't mind replanting everything, but he doesn't know how much longer he can do this. He feels restless. Something else should be happening, he should be somewhere else, anywhere else. Hux wishes now he'd been captured. The thought, he knows, is selfish, privileged.

He hears Kylo behind him. His steps slow as he reaches the garden. When Hux turns, Kylo is staring at the ripped up flowers. He heard that Leia's funeral was a parade of flowers, that beings came from every system and scattered flowers around her body as she was laid to rest. Hux was the one who gave the order to fire on her ship.

"How bad is it?" Kylo asks, nodding to the crops.

"Don't you want to kill me?" Hux asks.

Kylo looks at him finally, sidelong, tired.

"Don't you?" he asks.

And Hux understands.

That Kylo didn't come here to figure out where to go. He's not going anywhere.

He came here to die.

\--

Hux still hates him. He's very sure that Kylo still hates him as well. But they do this, this odd routine, cooking and trying to salvage the garden and then being too tired to really snipe at each other. The reality of Kylo being all Hux has left from his life hits him so hard one afternoon he goes into hysterics. His heart beats too fast and Hux is sure he's dying. So cold he suddenly can't stand it. He staggers outside into the damp air and starts walking.

Hux hasn't actually been past the garden in months, but today he goes beyond the hill, just walks. He's not going anywhere, not really. He walks until his chest stops aching. Until he's exhausted. The planet stretches out before him in rolling green, black mountains covered in mist. The horizon is never visible. There's just no end.

The walk back to the house is slower. By the time Hux gets inside he's so calm it's as if he's never had any emotion at all. Kylo stands when Hux comes in, clearly startled by how abruptly he left. And it gives Hux a small thrill, to know he did that. Made Kylo worry for him. He wonders if Kylo thought he wouldn't come back at all. Part of him wants that. For Kylo to feel that loneliness the way he did.

The traitorous, awfully human rest of him knows that they're going to die together. If Kylo left him now, Hux wouldn't be able to take it. He hates it.

"Where did you go?" Kylo asks. He can't hide the tremor in his voice.

Hux measures him with his eyes, the length of him, how his head brushes the ceiling.

"Turn around," he says. "Brace your hands on the table."

Kylo does without question. The table is low and the angle is awkward, his shoulders dropped forward, back curved impossibly so. Hux stands behind him. He presses his body against Kylo's, hears him inhale, _feels_ it. Hux slides his hand up Kylo's arm, reaches his neck and the delicate bump of his larynx. His grip tightens. Slight. A question. Kylo doesn't move. Hux moves his hand down and Kylo is hard beneath his clothes already. Just from this.

"Hux," he says.

Hux wishes he could deny him, but when Kylo turns and kisses him, Hux deflates into him, helpless to it. He punches his fist into Kylo's ribs. And he can taste Kylo's desperation, his disgust at his own need. The two of them crumple like that onto the floor.

"I hate you," Kylo says, no heat to it, like he only wants to hear the sound of his own voice. "I hate you."

Hux nods with the whole of Kylo in his lap, desperate to feel the inside of him again.

\--

That night, Hux dreams they start over. Everything new. Bloomed flowers and there is gold at his feet. And Kylo, Kylo is there by his side, laughing with a mouth full of blood.

\--

They're in the garden when the alarm comes. Kylo replanted the flowers a while back after they salvaged the crops, new ones sewn into the soil. It's too soon to tell if they'll take.

"What will you do if the flowers bloom?" Hux asks.

"Pick them," Kylo says, which is selfish, and the answer Hux expected.

There's a beep from inside. For a moment, Hux doesn't recognize the sound. Then, he realizes. The holocam has picked up movement near them, a ship. Sure enough, the soil shakes. Dread traitorously fills Hux's chest. He looks outward. Doesn't have to tell Kylo what this means. Hux considers what he should do—get his blaster? Go without a fight? He'd felt sure before about going quietly, but now there's an edge of doubt in his mind. Maybe he should fight until the bitter end, go down in blood and let the Resistance know they never even got him to a cell. He and Kylo stand there, unmoving.

At the bottom of the hill, two people move. Hux squints. He doesn't breathe. They don't seem to be carrying anything but packs. No blasters. Hux watches them bypass the hill, oblivious to their presence. Just travelers. Hux doesn't break his gaze until they disappear over the ridge, and only then does he look at Kylo, who's still watching the empty ground where they'd been.

Hux cannot tell if he's disappointed or not. He has no clue.

Next to him, Kylo breathes, chest visibly sinking. His hands are fists. They look at each other with the uncertainty neither one wants to talk about or admit.

It's not spoken about until dinner, the two of them pushing their food uselessly around their plates.

"What would you do now if someone came?" Kylo asks.

Hux's fork scrapes over his plate.

"Don't ask me that."

"But I did."

"Then I'm going to pretend that you didn't."

Hux keeps his eyes on his plate. He stabs his fork into his meat viciously and takes a bite. Kylo doesn't push him.

But when Hux wakes the next morning, Kylo is holding his blaster in his lap. Both of them naked, sheets pooled at their waists. Hux says nothing.

Kylo pulls his lightsaber to him from the front room. It claps solid into his hand. Hux can't stop his body from jumping at the motion. Instead of igniting the saber, Kylo pushes it into Hux's limp hand. Hux doesn't hesitate to take the lightsaber from him. Doesn't move when Kylo presses the barrel of the blaster against the underside of his jaw.

Hux puts the lightsaber against Kylo, just under his ribs. His thumb inches toward the activation switch. The two of them lock eyes. And the wind blows, and it is raining again.

An eternity passes before Kylo lets the blaster drop. Hux lets go of the lightsaber. They stare at each other with the knowledge that neither of them will do it. Neither of them will pull the trigger, hit the switch. Kylo starts laughing. Too loud, his body shaking from the strain of it. He presses his fingertips to his forehead and they drift down his face to his jaw. Hux presses his thumb to Kylo's bottom lip without thinking. For the first time, he doesn't taste regret in the back of his throat.

Kylo puts the lightsaber next to the blaster in the side table, shuts it.

"So that's where we're at," he says.

Hux nods, distracted by the impossible realness of Kylo.

After they dress, Kylo walks heel to toe through the line of crops, and Hux cannot stop watching him. He looks at Hux from his spot, lips pressed together in what could be a smile. Hux joins him in the crop line.

Today, the flowers have bloomed.

**Author's Note:**

> There was this interview with Domhnall about Peter Rabbit where his character was described as "Hux with a garden" and I wanted to write about that.
> 
> But then make it artsy. And sad. And so I did.
> 
> Occasionally on Tumblr @stereobone, but mostly on Twitter @stereoroo


End file.
